The coup reflected the textbook logic of any military takeover in an unstable democracy: in order to save democracy, the Egyptian military had to destroy it.

What happens now? Unfortunately, neither Egypt’s own history nor examples from other Middle Eastern countries are reassuring. Egypt had experienced a coup in 1952. The coup’s strongman, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, promised to lead the country to development and democracy. Soon, however, Nasser decided that he could not bring both wealth and democracy to his land so he forsake the latter to achieve the former (with immense popular support, it must be said). Anwar Sadat, who succeeded Nasser in 1970, was much less committed to Nasser’s socialism. Nevertheless, he held on to Nasser-like authoritarianism. Mobarak, a very different man than both Nasser and Sadat, also ran his country in an autocratic fashion.

The act of voting hasn’t turned Egypt’s dreams of democracy into a reality.

Now, Egypt’s military faces an enormous task: it has to draft a constitution and build the political institutions that would balance the demands and expectations of all Egyptians – be they Muslim, Christian, secular, male, female, traditional, or Western-oriented. Otherwise, in a few years it could easily find itself in a position where it would have to save democracy by destroying it again.

—

Barın Kayaoğlu, a Smith Richardson Foundation fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University, is finishing his Ph.D. in history at the University of Virginia. He welcomes all comments, questions, and exchanges. To contact him, click here.